The Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing at Montana State University is set to nearly double its financial support for students after receiving a large grant from the Bedford Falls Foundation – DAF.
The $2.5 million gift will go toward scholarships for students from Montana and student success efforts. The college and MSU Alumni Foundation expect the money to directly fund upward of 380 scholarships over five years starting this fall semester.
The Bedford Falls Foundation seeks to remove financial barriers to high-quality nursing education and address the critical nursing workforce shortage nationwide. Based in McLean, Virginia, the foundation supported scholarships for 41 university nursing programs in 2025. MSU is one of their newest grantees and is the western-most university in the United States to earn its support.
“We are honored that the exemplary work we are doing in the college of nursing at MSU has been recognized by the Bedford Falls Foundation, the premier foundation focused on nursing education and workforce,” said Sarah Shannon, dean of the nursing college. “This award will allow us to remove most of the barriers for our Montana students who have financial need. The generosity of the Bedford Falls Foundation and their commitment to helping students begin a nursing career is unparalleled.”
The grant allots $400,000 annually for the Joanne and William Conway Nursing Scholarships, with a target to award $5,000 scholarships to 76 students each year. Scholarships are renewable for students in good academic standing, so a student could potentially receive up to $10,000 over the two-year nursing program.
The awards will go to students with the greatest financial need. Applicants must be residents of Montana and admitted to the traditional Bachelor of Science in Nursing program, which typically admits around 240 new students annually. Students in the accelerated nursing program are not eligible for these scholarships.
The gift will provide a “paradigm shift” for the nursing college’s current financial ability to support students, said Paul Swift, the college’s assistant dean for academic programs. For academic year 2025-26, the college awarded $450,000 to about 175 students. Now it will have an additional $400,000 to distribute each year for five years.
“This gift allows us to fundamentally change our scholarship awarding process in ways that will significantly reduce the financial challenges and debt burden of our Montana students with the most need,” Swift said. “Alongside our Montana Nursing Direct Entry Program, we have removed many of the traditional barriers to the nursing profession for Montanans.”
The Montana Nursing Direct Entry Program helps students navigate the barriers to nursing school by providing guaranteed admission to the upper-division nursing program for Montana high school graduates.
The Bedford Falls Foundation – DAF grant acknowledges the reality that financial limitations or debt may stop excellent students from pursuing nursing school, Shannon said. That is difficult given the shortage of nurses nationally, and especially in the rural, frontier and tribal areas that many MSU students call home. Enabling such students who want to earn a degree and then return to serve their home communities is a priority for MSU, she said.
Additionally, the grant allocates $100,000 annually for student success efforts.
Shannon said there is flexibility in what that could look like, but there’s potential to fund a student success specialist position, support new efforts to prepare students for the national nursing licensure exam (NCLEX), and/or fund tutoring for select first-term courses.
“By supporting students pursuing nursing careers, our investment in MSU helps strengthen the health systems across the state of Montana and all 56 counties — ensuring that no matter how remote their communities are, they will still have access to skilled, compassionate care from nurses who graduated from MSU,” said Bill Conway, Bedford Falls Foundation’s founder. “We are proud to partner with MSU to help provide Montana’s rural communities with a strong, dedicated nursing workforce.”